Simulator Sickness
by Miss Evil Muffins
Summary: This wasn't death, of that Nanami was fairly certain.


Note: This was written before the big reveal about a certain character's role in the new anime!

This wasn't death, of that Nanami was fairly certain. Not that she would have experienced 'death', such as it were. That was a stage of life strictly reserved for flesh-and-blood human beings, not an AI. Nanami had never completely been able to convince herself into thinking that she was the same as them. Oh, it had been fun to pretend that everything- that _she-_ had all been real, to learn, to feel, and perhaps to love, if she may be so bold as to call it that.

"…Hoo boy!"

She could hear a voice now. … _Owari-san?_

"Oi, Hinata! Your girlfriend's awake!"

The sound of someone running on tiled floors followed, from a different direction.

"Hinata-kun?" Nanami's voice sounded strange in her ears, like hearing yourself in an old tape recording, a sound from a moment trapped in time, coming from someone who isn't quite 'you' anymore.

"Nanami?" his voice wavered, as if he were shaken. "Can…can you open your eyes? Can you hear me?"

How long had it been since he had witnessed her crushed underneath that block? This sleep had felt so different from her catnaps on island.

Her eyes opened slowly, both lids feeling like lead. Everything was blurry, as if she were swimming under the ocean water once again. Still, she could make out the shape of someone looking down at her, someone with dark hair, darker than that of the Hinata she had known. She attempted to sit up, her muscles combatting her the entire way.

Her body shouldn't feel like this. An AI had no muscles to strain, no joints to go stiff from inactivity. She hadn't felt anything like this before her 'execution'. Of course, she had been programmed to have some semblance of feeling while on this island, but this was something else entirely.

"Hinata…kun? I think that…I just had the strangest dream…"

Once she had finally righted herself, sitting up straight inside the open capsule, Hinata pulled her into a tight embrace.

She giggled softly. "You still feel hard."

Hinata pulled back, holding her at arm's length. "You do mean my chest again, right?"

His smile was weary, though soft with relief.

* * *

Nanami had found herself with something of an something of an 'extra continue', as it were.

She had been the first of those killed in the simulation to reawaken. Sonia had sat her down in a quiet area of the facility, away from the fuss of the others, to explain what she knew of the situation.

"I see what you're saying…I think," Nanami attempted to sort out everything that Sonia had just told her. It had been a lot to take in. "I was really alive all along, just like the rest of you…but then, when the simulation went wrong, I knew that something wasn't right, and somehow the mastermind's bug caused me to think that I was only an AI. It was all part of the plan… Were any of the others the true AI, instead of me?"

Sonia shook her head. "Only Usami-san."

"Usami…I see…"

Of course there was no way that the talking rabbit doll could have existed in real life, but Nanami still felt something at the loss of her fellow field-trip chaperone- her _friend_. Tracing her fingertips over the place where she now knew a heart must beat, she asked, "Was I in school, at Hope's Peak, with the rest of you? I…don't remember it."

"You were. They say that the memories might return in time. We're not entirely sure yet, since you were only the first to wake up…"

Even as a real human girl, Nanami still wasn't well-versed in romance. Even if she had dated someone during school, she had no memory of that now. Still, even she could tell by the look on Sonia's face that there was someone that the Princess was deeply wishing would awaken soon.

Before Nanami could learn more, however, Sonia suddenly found herself late to a video meeting with some of the Future Foundation members. Before she left, Nanami had one last question, "Where's Hinata-kun?"

Sonia smiled, "He's so happy to have his _main-squeeze_ back, that I thought he might overwhelm you if I let him in here right away. He needs to- how do you say it?- _'Take a chill a pill'_. You can see him soon."

Left alone, Nanami wandered back to the large room where the VR pods lay. She walked among them, running her fingers over the plexiglas covers, smooth and warm to the touch. The faces of her friends all looked so peaceful, as if they were only taking their afternoon nap. Now that she thought about it, since she had awakened, Nanami hadn't felt nearly as tired as she had during the simulation. It was somewhat freeing not needing to seek out a place to lie down every hour or so, however she wondered if the sleepy feeling would overcome her again soon. Perhaps being given a second- _third-_ chance at life had only left her with something of an adrenaline rush.

It was ironic, she thought, that she of all people should be revived first. It was hard to shake the feeling that they were all still somehow more human her. She had known back then that those 'killed' may still have a chance afterward, everyone with the exception of herself. She had made peace with her end, but now she was back before anyone else.

"There you are!"

Nanami jerked her hand back from the cover to Tsumiki's capsule as if burned.

"Are you feeling alright now?" Hinata asked.

"Better than ever...I'm pretty sure," Nanami said, flexing her arm in a comical attempt to make a muscle under the floppy sleeve of her hoodie.

It was the truth, at least physically speaking.

"I'm so glad." Hinata gathered her up for a second time. "I really thought that I'd never see you again..."

She peered around his shoulder as he continued to hold her. How easily this room could be rendered in pixels, she thought. How simple it would have been if these feelings were nothing more a script within a machine…

* * *

"Hinata-kun…I just had the strangest dream… I think" Nanami mumbled, rubbing at her eyes. There was something warm, and gritty beneath her bare arms and midriff. Sand.

She rolled over. To her left was Ibuki, crouched down on the shore and clad in a swimsuit, planting colorful little drink umbrellas in the sand, sheltering a line of black ants from the sun, and presumably, Saionji's wrath.

"Nanami! You shouldn't fall asleep on the beach like that," Hinata scolded. "You could get washed away. We might never see you again!"

Still muzzy from her nap, she turned back over to lie on her back once more, and gazed up at the boy standing above her, as the salt water lapped at her body. All the while, Ibuki's parade of paper umbrellas one-by-one floated out to sea.

 _End_


End file.
